1. My Baby's Not a Baby

Motherhood is inherently griefy. What is grief?

This first blog post is about the inherent griefiness of motherhood.

But first, what is grief? Because if it’s downstream of death and only death—most people should just close out the tab now. There’s enough fear-mongering in the world, enough statistical massaging to garner clicks and data, enough terrorizing of the human spirit. If motherhood was all about death, and if death was utterly awful (*this can be my second post), then… it would be a reasonable response to close the tab. But… that’s not what I’m saying.

I define grief, personally and in my clinical practice, as a whole-body response to loss. Loss includes loss of life but also includes loss of safety, loss of normalcy, loss of a relationship, loss of identity, and so forth. Grief is the aggregate of spontaneous, whole-body experiences including thoughts, emotions, affect (general ‘mood’), somatosensation, and physical experiences. Grieving is the behavior we engage in, inside and outside of ourselves, in the presence of grief. Grieving is informed by our skillset for tolerating, coping with, and taking care of ourselves emotionally, interpersonally, spiritually, physically, and it is side-by-side with our relationship with ourselves. So if I am harsh with myself and I tend to react to task failure with critical self-condemnation… I might have a radically different experience after, for example, the accidental but preventable death of a pet*, than if I am kind to myself and I tend to react to task failure with curiosity or acceptance. (*an experience I had earlier this year—a third post idea!)

Motherhood is griefy because it asks of a human being to pour themselves physically, emotionally, spiritually, in every possible way, into a being that will be gone, and we hope, gone soon. My baby’s not a baby anymore. He’s a preschooler—he has opinions, he’s bright, he has emotional depth and curiosity, he knows our family mottos and values. He can tolerate disappointment and he can scream from disappointment, depending on the day. He still likes to be right next to me, but, I can leave the house now with him in full comfort and contentment, without the wails of a very high-attachment-needs infant while I try to desperately make sense: “I know I need time for myself. Is this okay? Is this OKAY!?” (Spoiler on that one: I leaned into trusting my baby and limiting my “me time” more than I was advised; after offering very high nurture that matched his communication, he has grown into an already exceptionally independent and confident preschooler. Maybe a fourth post there.)

But now, I leave. I go dance. I see friends, get coffee. I ask how his day was, he has answers. He has a haircut now—I used to say, “I practice mindfulness by getting lost in the curl jungle”, smelling his head and nursing him, looking through curls defined by moisturizer some nights and frazzled on others. No curl jungle right now.

So it’s not the grief of death when I say, I grieve that curl jungle. It’s not the grief of a sudden loss when I say, I grieve that I could not do that first year again, with what I know now. But it still is, in a way, grief. And I still, in a way, participate in grieving. So I posit that by practicing grieving with purpose and in a values-oriented way, in the presence of small losses and collosal losses and everything in-between, you and I might experience:

(1) Improved behavioral, mental, and physical health

(2) A healthier community for grievers and humans broadly

(3) A more joyous motherhood

Now, do I KNOW this to be true? Absolutely not in my lack of a crystal ball. But I know it has been true for me personally, and I work enough with grievers to see that behavioral health built in the presence of rigid attachment to success and ‘happiness’ really does cause much more harm than it helps. (It reminds me of not allowing kids to take risks—it’s true, she won’t scrape her knee, but what ELSE is risked in the absence of risk!?)

Motherhood is inherently griefy because we are constantly saying hello and goodbye. To days that are long, years that are short, stages of development that feel like such a struggle to get through then see in a new light from from the other side. We are saying hello as quickly as we are saying goodbye. The newborn scrunch. The ring sling. The gummy smile.

I suspect an inability to embrace the grief of it also renders an inability to embrace the love of it.

And “it” is, motherhood, sure. But “it” is also this fleeting, finite, kaleidoscope life.

So I’m going to detail in this blog… in no particular order, because I cannot agree to an order, I can barely agree to consistent writing at this age and stage of my own life… exposition and choose-your-own-adventure instruction on how to grow the inner skillset to grieve. To hold grief, love, hope, and loss. I will share stories from my own life. I will weave in the principles of contextual behavioral science and applications of relational frame theory. I will sprinkle in physical health data and studies including metabolic health information.

I don’t know if this needs to be said: I commit to not using any AI tools in my writing. I’d rather say it messy and say it myself.

Follow along if you’d like, and make requests if you’d like. I’ll likely pair some of these entries with recorded guided practices—but not today. I am tired and I made a start, and for today, that is enough.

Talk soon. Take good care of you, too.